A little over a month or two ago I bought some steel cut oats with plans to start making them and increase the fiber in my diet by a bit. The oats I purchased sat there for a bit, my excuse was I wanted to get something else like dried fruit to put in to it. A few weeks ago we got the dried fruit and my laziness kept me from trying to make it for a bit yet, but this last weekend I finally got to it. I didn't hold any super high hopes in how it would turn out, I just found a recipe online that looked like something I could do and got to work making it happen. I modified the recipe as I needed to, my daughter is allergic to dairy and so I substituted soy milk for regular milk and I didn't feel like measuring the dried fruit. I also found the recipe didn't put enough sugar in it and I knew that without enough sugar my wife would hate it. Anyway, when it was all done after about 40 minutes of work we tried it out and found it to be a superb breakfast. My daughter liked it, exclaiming, "Mmm, yummy!" when she tried her first bite and my wife, after adding just a little more brown sugar, found it better than the packets of oatmeal we've bought in the past. I liked it as well, though I was sure I would when I got started anyway, and so we are now anxiously awaiting our next shopping trip to buy more ingredients and make this a common breakfast in our rotation. Below is the (rough) recipe to follow to make it in the way that I did.
Steel Cut Oatmeal
1 cup steel cut oats
2 cups milk
2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons brown sugar (you can use any type of sugar really, honey works too)
1/2 cup dried fruit
Combine water, milk and salt into a medium size sauce pan, cook over medium heat until it begins to boil, stir often (the milk will boil over quickly if you're not paying attention)
Add the oats to the boiling mixture, allow the mix to start boiling again (won't take long), stir often
Once boiling reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, covered, stirring often
Add dried fruit and sugar, simmer for another 15 minutes, covered, stirring often
The oatmeal should be thick, whatever your preference is really. Makes 4 servings, it refrigerates and microwaves well, getting slightly thicker in the process (so you may need to add more milk when you reheat it). The recipe I followed also says it freezes well, I haven't tried yet, but I'm sure I will when I make a large batch.
